


It Looks Ugly, But It's Clean

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Act II, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/F, Gen, Killing Eve - Freeform, Staggered Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 00:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20985458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: A Killing Eve/DA2 fusion that, frankly, got out of hand.-The image they pinned to the chanter’s board didn’t do her justice. She had brighter eyes, a prouder mouth. She wore a fine broad hat with plumes that nearly brushed the rafters.Hawke took an embarrassingly long time to reach for her sword. A wicked little knife leapt into the dirt floor just before her feet, but she sidestepped and got her scabbard, flung it off the sword in one motion, whirled toward the pirate queen, hauled back for a strike that would cleave her--And lodged her blade fast in the rafter like a stupid green cadet.She wasted an instant trying to pull it down, and the pirate queen didn’t have to hurry to put another knife under her chin. Hawke’s throat was hers for the taking, or her armpit if she felt like a little variety, or in through the harness of her breastplate, beneath the ribs.The pirate queen looked into Hawke’s eyes and said, “Do you have anything to drink?”





	It Looks Ugly, But It's Clean

**Author's Note:**

> A throwaway line in a completely different WIP sparked this little fic today, and I had to strike while the iron was hot. 
> 
> This is an Isabela who was never shipwrecked and stranded in Kirkwall, and consequently never recruited. This is set roughly during Act 2. 
> 
> This fic is completely unbeta'd and any errors are my own.

Hawke can swim, but she doesn’t have to like it. 

There is so much here to dislike. She is alone, she left all her armor ashore, there is a knife between her teeth and that’s a lot to keep track of, and swimming in the ocean is not at all like swimming in a river. Some part of her, a deeply buried instinct, knows there is no ground to stand on here. 

She moves in the shadow of a sleek black ship, whose mainmast menaces the belly of the moon. Only some of its portholes are lit, and no light at all shines from the windows of the aft cabin. 

There is a rope, though, waiting for her hand when she feels her way along the line where the water laps at the timbers. Hawke pulls herself out of the water, and catches herself reflexively reaching back to help a companion up. There’s no one. She grits her teeth around the knife, and starts to climb. 

・

Aveline was the first to turn back after the letter she received in Amaranthine, and she took their complement of guards with her. “New orders,” she explained. “There’s trouble in the city--more than usual, anyway. Sorry, Hawke. If you do find her, write to me, and the Viscount will send a ship.” 

・

She is sick to death of ships. Taking ships from port, to port, to dreary, stinking island based on nothing more than rumors. Watching from shore for ships. Boarding ships. She scrapes her elbow on a tarred board, and smothers a curse. Her arms burn. It is a much longer way up than it looked from the water. 

・

Merrill and Anders left the day after Aveline, both of them with their own concerns long neglected, and at the time Hawke would not have dreamt of resenting them--any of them--for leaving. She hugged them both, though not at the same time, and sent them off with enough coin for passage home. “You’re taking all the magic with you,” she sulked. 

“Don’t get stabbed,” Anders advised her, only half joking. 

・

She hauls herself over the rail and into the shadow of a barrel, where she huddles, dripping, for long minutes. After hearing nothing, she proceeds toward the stern, skirting the lamplight, until she stands with the dagger in one hand and the other hand on the cabin door. 

・

The first parcel arrived--was waiting for her in her room at the Pearl before she even got there--three days after. _ It’s cold in the south_, said the florid script on a scrap of card. Hawke turned it over. _But you already know that, of course. Not as many friends to keep you warm now_. 

She cut the twine, and the thin paper opened to reveal a grey wolf pelt. When she touched it, her hand sank into the fur. 

She gave it to Fenris. He needed it more than she did as they pressed on south of Denerim, following the coast. She did not mention where it came from. 

・

Hawke turns the handle and enters the cabin, dagger high and ready. Slats of moonlight fall across an empty bed. An empty room. 

・

The second parcel appeared at the next inn, in a nameless village nearly a week later. _Too coarse?_ said the note. There was nothing written on the reverse. Inside was a cut of red silk long enough to shroud her twice over. 

・

In the dark, Hawke starts to shiver. She yanks an untidy blanket off the bed and wraps herself in it. 

・

The final straw for Fenris and Varric came just outside Gwaren. Hawke and her family had slept in a little cabin on the edge of the Brecilian forest on their way to Kirkwall, and to her delight it had remained abandoned since the Blight, with only a few holes in the low ceiling. She sent Varric and Fenris into town for supplies, and she set about making a fire. 

The door swung open not three minutes after they left. Hawke turned to ask Fenris if he needed another loan, and there she was in the doorway. 

The image they pinned to the chanter’s board didn’t do her justice. She had brighter eyes, a prouder mouth. She wore a fine broad hat with plumes that nearly brushed the rafters. 

Hawke took an embarrassingly long time to reach for her sword. A wicked little knife leapt into the dirt floor just before her feet, but she sidestepped and got her scabbard, flung it off the sword in one motion, whirled toward the pirate queen, hauled back for a strike that would cleave her-- 

And lodged her blade fast in the rafter like a stupid green cadet. 

She wasted an instant trying to pull it down, and the pirate queen didn’t have to hurry to put another knife under her chin. Hawke’s throat was hers for the taking, or her armpit if she felt like a little variety, or in through the harness of her breastplate, beneath the ribs. 

The pirate queen looked into Hawke’s eyes and said, “Do you have anything to drink?” 

Hawke’s mouth worked for a minute before any sound came out. “A little brandy,” she said. She hated the way her voice went up at the end, as if she wanted this woman's approval. 

“That will do nicely.” The pirate queen smiled, and stepped back, and lowered her knife but did not put it away. 

Hawke waited, feeling quite the fool, until the pirate queen tilted her head. Gradually she loosened her grip on the sword, and finally left it hanging there, and took a step backward, and another, until she bumped into her pack. Hands spread, she crouched down--a motion, some ridiculous part of her mind observed, rather like a curtsey. The pirate queen only watched her open the pack and feel out the flask, a quarter full after so long roughing it in the forest. She held it out, and the pirate queen nodded toward the cabin’s little table with two hewn logs for seats, so Hawke brought it there. 

“Please, sit,” said the pirate queen, like this was her house. Perhaps it was. Perhaps Hawke was that much of an idiot, that thoroughly in her hands. Hawke sat, and the pirate queen did too. “Can I just say how much I’m enjoying this?” 

“What?” she asked, scintillatingly. 

The pirate queen uncapped the flask. “The attention is so flattering. And your pursuit, over _land_ no less, as if you could hope to keep up--it makes me feel like some kind of prize. Which I guess I am, with the bounty and all.” 

Hawke’s wits returned by degrees. “If you’re enjoying it, why send the Crow after me?” 

The flask hung at her lips after a swig, and her dark brows drew together. “Oh, dear. What did he say?” 

“He asked me if I’m Qunari. Do I look Qunari?” 

Eyes like polished copper scrutinized her, and for a moment Hawke felt far more exposed than she truly was under plate and padding. “I haven’t checked everywhere,” the pirate queen said. 

She didn’t have time to unpack that. “And then he said he just wanted me to know he’s not a jealous man, and he disappeared.” 

"Well, that was for my benefit, not yours." The pirate queen offered Hawke the flask, and after a moment’s hesitation Hawke took it, and drank. 

The brandy helped. “I’m not so easy to scare off,” she rasped after it burned its way down her throat. 

“Obviously not. What’s the phrase? _Dogged_ determination? Where is your dog, anyway?” 

Hawke set her jaw. She’d sent the dog back home with the elf woman they freed near Highever, when Hadriana caught up with Fenris and died for her trouble. 

“Oh!” The pirate queen clapped. “Or _dogsbody_, my favorite. Did the Viscount even tell you what I stole?” 

“Are you going to gloat now?” 

“I think it would be of particular interest to you.” 

“I don’t give a damn what you keep in your hold. That’s not why I’m here.” 

The pirate queen took the flask back. “You would love to see what’s in my hold, sweet thing. Have you run through your advance yet? You must be low on coin. Take this.” She plucked a hammered gold medallion from her ear and set it on the table. 

Hawke didn’t touch it. “I suppose you think you know everything about me.” 

She laughed then, a bright sound. “I do know everything about you, and you know nothing about me.” 

“I know your name.” 

The pirate queen shook her head as if they were discussing a mutual acquaintance who died doing something foolish. “My name,” she said, “is Isabela.” 

“I know you took something from the Qunari, and they want you even more than the Viscount does. I know that playing games with me puts you at greater risk of being cornered by them.” 

“What else?” the pirate queen said sweetly. 

“I know you’re ruthless.” 

"I knew a girl named Ruth once. I was only ruthless after I left her." The pirate queen set the flask aside and leaned across the table. “What else?” 

Hawke’s voice was deserting her again. “I know you’re an extraordinary person.” 

“Why aren’t you wearing the silk?” the pirate queen asked, her eyes on Hawke’s collar where her travel-stained tunic could just barely be seen. 

“What use do I have for silk?” she countered in a rough whisper. 

The pirate queen backed away, her lower lip caught between her teeth as if to hold back a smile. She tipped the flask into her mouth and drained it. 

“I don’t need any more coin, either,” Hawke went on, emboldened, pushing the earring back to her. 

The pirate queen set her hand over Hawke’s. “Keep it. Wear it yourself.” 

Hawke swallowed against a dry throat. “My ears aren’t pierced.” 

“No?” The pirate queen reached over and held her earlobe between thumb and forefinger in the lightest of touches. “Then we’ll take care of that,” she said, “next time.” 

And she rose, and turned her back on Hawke, and walked out of the open door into the night. 

Over the roar of blood in her ears, Hawke heard the pirate queen say, “Oh yes, it suits you better.” Varric yelled something, and Hawke heard the thrum of Bianca, and then the urgent bite in Fenris’s voice. They burst into the cabin together to find Hawke, knuckles white around the table’s edge, with an empty flask and a disc of gold before her. 

“Varric,” she said, through chattering teeth, “what do you suppose Bartrand did with that idol?” 

Varric and Fenris exchanged a strange, guarded look, and then Fenris moved to her and set his hands on her shoulders. “Are you hurt?” 

“No,” she said at once, but he felt her shaking, and he took the pelt off and started to put it on her. She shoved his hands away. “Don’t! Don’t.” 

He laid it on the table instead, over the flask and the earring. And then he held up his hands and moved away from her a pace. Even in the maelstrom of her thoughts, Hawke felt a pang at that. 

“Hawke,” Varric tried. “We were talking.” 

She ran a hand over her face, forced her voice to be light. “What about?” 

“Maybe it’s time to hang this one up.” 

“Now?” Hawke shut her eyes and shook her head. “Not a chance. She was right here, Varric. _Next time_, she told me. So next time, we’ll be ready.” 

Again they looked to each other, and Hawke was on the outside of some silent conversation. “What?” she snapped. 

“We stopped at the inn in Gwaren,” said Fenris. “There was a letter waiting for you.” 

“Did mabaris eat it on your way back, or can I read it?” Her humor was a brittle thing, on the very edge of shattering. 

“You ought to sit down,” said Varric. 

・

She has nearly fallen asleep, leaning against the wall by the cabin door, when halloos and creaks sound from the side of the ship, a boat returning from shore. Hawke stands, and shrugs off the sodden blanket, and works to channel her fury into her numb fingertips. Her vision swims; she suspects she’ll have a fever by morning. All the more reason to end it tonight. Whichever way that goes. 

The pirate queen walks in, and stops, knowing, before she lets the door close. But she does let it close, and she turns slowly to face Hawke. “What a killing spree you’re on, hmm?” 

“What did you do with the idol?” Maybe if she has the whole of the story, she will understand what her life has become these past weeks, why she gave up her soft bed to sleep in the woods and in shitty inns and on dirt floors, for a bounty too small to pursue when it became so complicated. Maybe the answer will explain why she can't stop thinking about the pirate queen's eyes and her hair and what she's having for breakfast and who's in her bed.

The pirate queen peers at her. “Do you mean the sword? It sold, and quickly. I delivered it myself, to a fine castle, if a bit dilapidated. The buyer threw in the pelt. Not to worry, though--there is still plenty of booty down below.” The pirate queen steps to the side, testing her, and Hawke turns with her, but doesn’t advance. “An answer for an answer. Who landed the blow on Castillon? Was it you, or that lanky elf of yours?” 

“Me.” She swipes wet hair out of her eyes. 

“Ahh, yes.” The pirate queen walks backward. “You sent the elf away, didn’t you.” 

Hawke tightens her grip on the knife. “I sent everyone away.” 

“Because you still believe you can finish this.” 

She lifts her chin. “I’m here, aren’t I?” 

The pirate queen smiles in a sliver of moonlight as she sits down on the bed. There is a fresh nick on her shoulder, not deep, and another across her cheek. “You’re here, Hawke.” 

She lets the point of the knife dip. “Maker, I’m tired. Aren’t you tired?” 

The pirate queen pats the bed. Hawke tucks the knife close to her chest and goes to sit beside her, near enough to feel the warmth of her body. “Can I tell you a secret?” the pirate queen says, and Hawke nods. “Viscount Dumar doesn’t give a fig for a lyrium sword, except as a favor for a friend. He sent you after me because his son joined my crew while we were in Kirkwall.” 

Hawke says, “My mother died while I was chasing you.”

The pirate queen stares at her, but she isn’t speechless for long. “Oh. Oh, you poor, sweet thing. Lie down with me.” 

Hawke leans back until she is flat on the mattress, and she lets the pirate queen straighten her fingers one by one around the knife and take it away. A warm hand strokes her hair. Hawke lets her eyes close. 

“Someone has to mind the estate,” she says into the dark. “So I sent Varric back. And Fenris argued and argued, but he finally said _Command me to go and I shall_, so I did. I said so many things. I’m so tired.” 

“I’m glad you’re here,” says the pirate queen, and Hawke thinks she is, too. She thinks she could stay, for a little bit. “I’ve thought so much about our last conversation. When you said playing games with you put me at risk of being cornered by the Qunari, that was remarkably prescient.” 

Hawke opens her eyes. The little cuts on the pirate queen’s shoulder and cheek are the sort that javelins would leave when they fly a hair too close. 

The tip of the knife needles at her gut, not yet breaking the skin. Oh. That's rude. “I hope you won’t take it personally," the pirate queen says. "I really have enjoyed this.” 

“Isa--” Unspeakable pain beneath her ribs. But it’s quick, and it’s clean, and she can be grateful for that much, maybe. Hawke curls up around the blade, hands poised over the hilt, afraid to touch it. “Ahh… _Isabela_!” 

Isabela is propped on one elbow over her, and Hawke watches the satisfaction on her face slide away, and something new appear in her copper eyes. Panic. Possibly even regret. “Don’t move,” she says, one hand out. 

“Don’t _touch_ it!” But Isabela does, and pulls the blade out, and Hawke screams. “I can’t believe you!” She slides, arching in pain, off the edge of the bed.

“Wait,” Isabela gasps, “just wait, wait, I have healing potions--” 

Isabela shoves a wad of white cloth at Hawke and gropes through the dark toward a chest, but Hawke is up, her hand pressed over the cloth that’s turning red on the gaping bloody wound, and she crashes out the door as Isabela calls her name. The helmsman raises the alarm, but Hawke is already over the railing. 

She plunges into seawater. It gets in through the hole in her belly, flooding her with cold, and she doesn't have much time, but she's going to make it. She's going to make it, out of spite if nothing else. Hawke kicks, with the last scraps of life left in her, for shore. 

She hates swimming, and she _hates_ ships. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @hauntedfalcon on Tumblr, if you would like to yell at me for this.


End file.
